it's not that syria didn't have some problems, it's that they were mostly tied to the previous ruler (who died 25 years ago) and that the reforms that his son brought in were actually extremely liberalizing, leaving syria as probably the most moderate muslim state in the entire middle east. the turks, iranians, egyptians and saudis are all infinitely worse than syria has been in decades.
worse, syria was a rendition site for us torture during the iraq war. that is, a lot of the basis of the criticism comes directly from cia torture sites in syria.
i understand that this is a proxy war and that what actually just happened was a turkish-backed coup in syria, which is only possible with nato oversight (and russian disengagement). it looks like israel is going to make a mess of the situation, which is what assad was trying to avoid, and which is sort of required. these terrorists are bad guys, and at least the israelis seem have their heads out of their asses about it.
joe's analysis is just not of the current era, or of the current century. biden unquestionably green-lighted this, and he no doubt did it because harris lost the election. it's a last hurrah. yet, like so many of the horrible foreign policy decisions he made, it's through the filter of somebody that never let go of the cold war.
the younger assad is probably the least ruthless dictator anybody's seen in the region in the modern era, at least. the language coming from the white house and propaganda in line with it is not consistent with reality, and largely delusional in terms of what assad was and where he was trying to take the country, which was actually into the european union, in the very long run.
now, syria will be lucky to avoid a fate different than afghanistan went through in the 80s, and i can only wish them luck. they'll need it.
instead of fighting the last battle of the cold war, biden should have been blowing up the existential threat developing in yemen, which he's completely avoided dealing with because he's obsessed with settling scores with the russians.